6 years of building an EA-aligned career from an LMIC

This is Part 1 of a multi-part series, shared as part of Career Conversations Week. The views expressed here are my own and don't reflect those of my employer.

TL;DR:

Building an EA-aligned career starting from an LMIC comes with specific challenges that shaped how I think about career planning, especially around constraints:

• Everyone has their own "passport"—some structural limitation that affects their career more than their abilities. The key is recognizing these constraints exist for everyone, just in different forms. Reframing these from "unfair barriers" to "data about my specific career path" has helped me a lot.
• When pursuing an ideal career path, it's easy to fixate on what should be possible rather than what actually is. But those idealized paths often require circumstances you don't have—whether personal (e.g., visa status, financial safety net) or external (e.g., your dream org hiring, or a stable funding landscape). It might be helpful to view the paths that work within your actual constraints as your only real options, at least for now.
• Adversity Quotient matters. When you're working on problems that may take years to show real progress, the ability to stick around when the work is tedious becomes a comparative advantage.

Introduction

Hi, I'm Rika. I was born and raised in the Philippines and now work on hiring and recruiting at the Centre for Effective Altruism in the UK.

This post might be helpful for anyone navigating the gap between ambition and constraint—whether facing visa barriers, repeated setbacks, or a lack of role models from similar backgrounds. Hearing stories from people facing similar constraints helped me feel less alone during difficult times. I hope this does the same for someone else, and that you'll find lessons relevant to your own situation.

It's also for those curious about EA career paths from low- and middle-income countries—stories that I feel are rarely shared. I can only speak to my own experience, but I hope it offers some insight.

I'll focus on sharing 2 key lessons from my 6 years building a career inspired by EA principles:

• Treating structural limitations as data, not disqualifiers
• The value of high AQ (Adversity Quotient)

My EA journey so far

I've been formally involved in EA since late 2018, when I first heard about effective altruism during my freshman year of college. Since then, I've:

• Landed full-time roles at Ambitious Impact and the Centre for Effective Altruism
• Volunteered at 5 impact-focused nonprofits
• Co-founded EA Blue
• Spoken in over 7 countries (plus ~10+ online events)
• Completed my Psychology degree while exploring local mental health work
• Migrated from the Philippines to the UK

The career path that brought me here wasn’t as smooth as my LinkedIn profile might imply. Between these bullet points, there were 5-hour commutes, soaked textbooks during typhoon seasons, and months of complicated immigration processes.

Sometimes my passport mattered more than my competencies, and that's okay

This might sound specific to my situation, but I believe everyone has their version of this constraint.

At Ambitious Impact (AIM), I started as a Recruitment and Outreach Officer; my role included representing the organization at conferences worldwide. It didn't take long to realize that holding a Filipino passport brought unexpected limitations to my career. To give you an idea:

• With my Filipino passport, I need a visa for most European countries, the U.S., U.K., Canada, and ~130 nations, even for a short visit. What’s routine travel for many requires months of prep and hundreds of pounds.
• A Schengen visa costs £200-500, requires 40-100 pages of paperwork, and takes about a month to process.
• Moving to the U.K. for my role took 6-8 months, while some colleagues did it in 2.

These logistical frictions made it harder to do my current job at that time. 

They also forced me to rethink how I pace and sequence my career. It's not just about what roles I want to take on, but when and where they're realistically possible.

Everyone has their own "passport"

My 6-8 month immigration process included the usual paperwork, and the not-so-usual:

• Urine test, blood test, and drug test
• IQ test
• 200-question psychometric test
• Whole day English exam
• And more

Others may have used the same chunk of time I was "wasting" on bureaucracy to launch charities, shape policy, or move the needle on important projects. Meanwhile, I navigated systems that didn't care about my skillset or career plans. The thought that time spent on immigration paperwork could have been spent on projects helping people and animals was deeply frustrating. 

My breakthrough came when I stopped seeing these as obstacles and started accepting them as simply part of my specific path, given my background. More importantly, I realized everyone has their own "passport"—something structural or personal that affects their career more than their abilities:

• Family responsibilities preventing relocation
• Health conditions limiting certain types of work
• Lack of traditional credentials despite high competence
• Missing networks others take for granted
• Financial constraints preventing unpaid internships

Reframing my logistical constraints from "unfair barrier" to "data about my specific career path" was helpful. My path simply has different rules than my peers with stronger passports. Not necessarily harder—just different.

Realistic opportunities often outweigh idealistic ones

From 2021 to 2024, I was building career capital toward launching a high-impact charity. Two years in, my circumstances evolved in ways I hadn't anticipated. I'd built a life in the UK—including relationships and professional networks that would be difficult to replicate elsewhere. Starting a charity might mean risking this long term. (Yes, I explored self-sponsorship options—this doesn't work given my circumstances.) Right now, I see the strategic benefit of waiting for permanent residency, which would provide the stability and flexibility both for my personal and professional life long-term. 

Something I've noticed in my younger self and other EAs: when pursuing an "ideal career path," it's easy to fixate on what should be possible rather than what actually is. Life happens. Circumstances change. The EA job market tightens, funding landscapes shift, dream organizations shut down. Or maybe it's personal—your family needs financial stability that your ideal career plan can't provide. What made sense at one stage might not fit who you've become or the opportunities currently available for you.

The key is recognizing what's actually within your control and being strategic about your constraints. I've stopped viewing personal circumstances as compromises and started treating them as design parameters for my career. Sometimes, the path that works with your reality delivers more long-term impact than the "perfect" path that requires you to break yourself against immovable barriers. I view this as not settling—but sequencing.

Importance of a fail-safe

Having a backup plan beyond common EA-specific roles helped enormously. I asked myself: If everything goes wrong, what would my career look like, and would I still be okay with it? For me, if plans A through G don't work out, say in the next 8-10 years, I'd return to the Philippines for a Master's in Psychology and work on community mental health projects—likely consulting or maybe becoming a certified therapist. Both paths sound deeply worthwhile. 

Playing the long game

Here's what I want to be clear about: accepting your constraints doesn't mean tempering your ambitions or settling for less. It means being strategic about timing and sequencing while staying wildly ambitious about your ultimate trajectory.

You may want to jump into a role at an EA organization, but lack the right context or skillset—frame this as something that's just not meant for right now. Build the context/skills and come back, or potentially consider entering at a lower seniority level. I've heard of previous directors applying for internships because of context gaps. My constraints have taught me to think in decades, not years. They've forced me to be more thoughtful about each step, more intentional about skill-building, more strategic about positioning.

The long game means I might take a less direct route to impact, but it doesn't necessarily mean I'll have less impact. If anything, the skills I'm building navigating these constraints—the ability to persist, adapt, and find creative solutions—might make me more effective when I do reach those bigger roles.

Adversity quotient seems underrated

It seems like IQ and EQ get relatively plenty of attention in discussions about performance or success, but I've found that Adversity Quotient (AQ)^[1]—the measure of someone's ability to handle high-stress environments, persist through challenges, and push through when others might very reasonably stop—deserves equal focus. Some associated traits include: agency,  irrepressibility and resilience.

Building resilience through adversity

One of the hardest things I've done was finishing my studies under some conditions that tested my limits:

• 5-10 hour daily commutes throughout my teens (not a typo—and this went on for years)
• Reliance on scholarships while I worked a side job and multiple volunteer positions—helping others always mattered, even when I was stretched thin
• Typhoon season (like this and somewhat this) in the Philippines meant arriving home drenched—as if I'd showered fully clothed with my bag on. I'd spread soaked books and notebooks in front of electric fans, trying to salvage notes

Over time, something shifted. I started using those commutes to listen to podcasts—hours of content about finance, startups, psychology, careers. I remember my first podcast obsession was Optimal Living Daily. I read books during 3-hour traffic jams; sometimes vehicles would be paused at one spot long enough to get a decent crack at a new book. I eventually adapted to my circumstances and made it work for me. 

Pivot into end-to-end recruiting

Applying to CEA without formal full-round recruiting experience, I went beyond the standard prep work:

• I read 4 recruiting books in 2 weeks, and reached out to experts
• After I got the role, I volunteered to support a hiring round at Ansh to gain additional experience. Since it took 2 months for me to get a visa to start working, I wanted to spend some time contributing to an impactful organization, and upskilling further.
• I continue to read 1-2 recruiting or operations-related books monthly while giving talks and doing some part-time consulting work to deepen learning

None of this is glamorous—it's mostly unpaid work, doing what needed to be done to build the context, skills, and connections for the work I care about.

Building AQ over time

To be honest, I don't think I'm exceptionally brilliant. My IQ is solid, my EQ decent—mostly from deliberate effort through thousands of hours of community building, reading, and therapy. Where I believe I have an edge is adaptability and persistence. This wasn't natural for me; it developed through my teens and twenties. Each time I chose to find something I could control rather than surrendering to circumstances, each time I took ownership instead of playing victim—I was building my AQ.

Results often aren't immediate, but they compound over time. It took me a decade to see the fruits of overcoming adversity and to fully appreciate the value of developing this competency. For years—throughout my academic career and parts of my early professional life—I worked 65-70 hour weeks. Those hours weren't just about grinding; they meant more opportunities to fail, learn, and iterate. When you don't have certain advantages, sometimes the only way to catch up is through sheer repetition. 

I don't work these hours anymore, but those years of extra reps built the foundation of my work ethic now.

I bring this up because I've noticed how some people talk about work with an emphasis on "working smart" over "working hard"—and I understand why. Being strategic with your time matters. But this framing can miss something important: for many people, especially those with fewer resources or facing structural barriers, working longer hours isn't about choosing hard work over smart work. It's about doing what's necessary to bridge the gap. Sometimes the work itself demands it too—delivering results on ambitious timelines means putting in the extra hours, regardless of how "smart" your approach is.

Why AQ matters in EA-aligned work

Within our community, many of us work on pressing global problems that take years to show progress. Planning your career around such work—especially in cases when you can't see if you're making a dent—requires a particular kind of persistence. These problems need people who stick around when progress is invisible and the work is tedious. This is likely when high AQ becomes a real advantage.

Here are a few ways I've built on my AQ that might be helpful for others too:

• Take on stretch projects, even if you feel underqualified
• Reflect on past hardships—what tools did they give you?
• Do one uncomfortable thing each week (e.g., networking, cold emailing, ambitious applications). This week, mine is writing this EA Forum post.
• Reframe adversity as preparation, not punishment

Closing thoughts

This story doesn't come up much in EA spaces—one where structural constraints are real, paths are messy, and persistence matters as much as brilliance. But maybe someone needs to hear that visa struggles, long commutes, and lack of traditional advantages don't disqualify you from meaningful impact. They're just part of your career path.

For individuals facing constraints: Your limitations aren't disqualifiers—they're data about your specific path. Focus on what you can control and remember that "different than popular advice" doesn't mean not impactful.

For EA organizations: Consider how structural barriers affect talent from different backgrounds. The next breakthrough contributor might be navigating visa systems or resource constraints right now. How can we better support these paths?

I realize this post may be more personal than typical EA Forum content, but personal storytelling is its own skill I'm still developing. If any part resonates, I'd love to hear about which part struck you and why. Also, very very open to feedback through comments or DMs!

1. ^{^}

   Stoltz, P. G. (1997). Adversity Quotient: Turning Obstacles into Opportunities. John Wiley & Sons.